


the boy who tried

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Melida/Daan, The Jedi Exile - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 06:19:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7789954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the captain has many names. no one remembers obi-wan. most simply call him the negotiator.</p><p>(his name will be striped further from his bones, one day. he will be exile, <em>the<em></em></em> exile, the wandering road-spirit. even his far-seeing eyes do not see that yet, but they will. they will.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the boy who tried

 

 

**v**

there are whispers to be heard, if you know how. in dark crossways, smuggler bars and game-houses with bad lighting, tea shops and holo archives. people listen and take note, and with every telling the legend grows, shifts.

there are whispers to be heard, about a planets at war that lead to peace, lonely forgotten planets. the sort where hope writers in a quiet blaze and republic help is a myth. about a ships with a strange mottled crew, and their humanoid man-child of a captain, a braided boy that stops storm before they start brewing.

there are whispers to be heard. like all whispers, they have a seed of truth in them.

 

**iv**

the captain has many names. his people call him that, because the title fits him as well as his worn patched cloak. the wise ones of an isolated forest planet named him witch eye. he does not like that title, but his legend wears it well. he is ben to his friends, the close ones he inevitably leaves behind. he is the general, the one-that-stayed-behind, the one-that-endured. some of the ghosts call him knight, but that's later, later. 

(there is a ghost of a monster of a man in black robes that calls him grandson of my grandsons, and his legacy is ash and regret and battered love)

no one calls him padawan, not even his teachers. that is not as much of a loss as he had thought it would be, once.

no one remembers obi-wan. most simply call him _the negotiator_.

(his name will be striped further from his bones, one day. sheared off, like budding drains and titles and bonds are. he will be exile, _the_ exile, vagabond, the wandering road-spirit. even his far-seeing eyes do not see that yet, but they will. they will.)

 

  
**iii**

dagobah is hot and heavy, every inhalation a study in layers. its gravitational pressure always seems to be a little more than human joints would wish it to be. the sky seems very small under the weaving of lianas and dozens of specimens of swamp ivies, the world a single thrumming life form. the old temple is hard to find, but the boy that is not yet the negotiator, he's patient. war made him that way.

if he looks around the corners in search of green craggy trolls, well, he's young enough to be forgiven some nostalgia. as long as it isn't regret. (it isn't. it is. it tries not to be)

the swamp has grown fat and unrelenting. tree roots breach crumbling stone, stain unblemished beige in shades of fungus-white and fluorescent mosses, purple and yellow a relief among the green. once, this structure rose high, breached the treetops in round perfection. these halls were whole and filled with silent meditation. now they are broke and thriving with abandoned life. it is an ironic trade, but fair, the negotiator thinks.

the council chamber is much like its living twin, in the city-planet half a galaxy away. the cracks in the stone are older here, a thrumming thinness in the space between breaths that shivers in his lungs. it's almost cold, the power coming from the blade stabbed into the mosaic work, except for that it is hot.

the 'saber shines still. the light is hidden under dust and growing spirals of white baha'i ivy, peppered with white buds, but it shines. blue, like the cloistered sky, like the color of vision threads in the unifying force. the boy is surprised, and then wry, and then pleased.

  
it fits his hand perfectly and that is not surprise at all.

 

  
**ii**

the ghost comes to him after the last of the peace talks, after the dead are burned in mass fires because they were too tired and the land too unforgiving for graves. it is the first jedi funeral in melinda/daan, soon to gain a new name. the boy had suggested it.

the sky is dark with smoke that hurts the voice, bruises the neck. the ghost is a spot of faded white in a landscape of burned grey, easy to spot.

'did I do the right thing?' he asks. his words are smoke-hurt and small. he is young and alone and grieving. she forgives him this without having to forgive.

'i will not say you did the right thing.' she responds. 'that is for you to decide. I myself never stuck to one only conclusion.'

'that isn't very helpful.' he snarks, because he is young and alive and angry, hungry.

'it is. and so are you. you did something. you tried. that is the truth. you tried.'

'i tried.' he utters, and it's a confession, too tired to be a defiance. too weak, too small.

'that is what we do.' she tells him. 'that is the only lesson I have to give you.'

the boy that ended the war and the woman that ended the war look at the corpses burning over the place where will one day be a peaceful, forgettable city. the fires burn. a little braid burns among the dead, its loss a tragedy among many.

 

  
**i**

a master and an apprentice yell at each other. fire rages on around them, hot enough to singe. this is not lava, but blaster fire blasted by hopeless adults towards hopeful children. it burns, regardless. death always does and this is a death, a certainty in time. unwashable, unclean.

'i trusted you' the master does not say. he is not the trusting kind. but he has been burned before. this fire and this burning, this heat-wavering distance is not new to him

'you lie' the boy does not say. none of them lie. all of them did. the teachers that told him he would do good, without boundaries; the vows of obedience he had trusted and worshiped; the promise of unwavering dedication. there are bodies falling around him, young and familiar and smoking. he knew their names and supported their cause and yet they fall before his eyes. they did not teach him about that in the créche.

the master says something cutting. the student wavers, twitches, does not give ground. a body falls, a sheated blade lifts dust and ash when it falls. a ship rises, headed towards brighter stars.

  
a tie, new and fragile-stark, is cut off. it seems to smoke a little in the air, among the corpses and the exiled boy.

 

  
**0**

there are whispers. no one listens to them. until someone does.

there are choices. no one takes them, until someone does, until someone _tries_.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm trying my hand at this, we'll see how it goes. will probably write more.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always wonderful!


End file.
